#bioengr

[bioengr]

Researchers at the Sydney Zoo deployed a robot dog to study how animals would behave in its presence.

The Unitree robot dog, dubbed Sparky, was put face-to-face with two cheetahs inside their enclosure. While the cheetahs didn’t seem particularly fond of their new robot friend, Sparky was able to hold its ground.

[cosmicvintage]

Did you know 😏 that there is a possibility for humans 👲👱 to have more than five ✋ fingers? Of course you can do that by adding a 3d printed prosthetic thumb 👍 . This particular project was carried out by Dani Clode (MA Design Products), Royal College of Art.  #biology #prosthetics #prosthetic # design # award #winner #dani # close #daniclode #royal #college #uk #london # product #3d #printing #engineering #3rd #thumb # fingers #human #rewired #biomedical # engineering #bioengr #helen #tech #world #science #technology #medicine #life #business #entrepreneur # news (at The Silicon Valley, California)

[bioengr]

A controllable prosthetic hand using electromyography to detect the gestures and muscle activities. The project is aimed to be affordable, upgradable, repairable, and flexible. To make it affordable, it consists of 3D printed parts for structure and only common electronic parts are being used. The hand is controlled through EMG signals read by muscle activities on upper forearm. These EMG signals are then transmitted via Bluetooth to Raspberry Pi. The Raspberry Pi then processes these signals and move servo motors accordingly. The project is still in early state with many areas could be improved.

courtesy: Kenneth V.

[bioengr]

When Mosha, an elephant, was two years old, she lost her leg in a landmine injury along the Thai-Burmese border. Luckily, an orthopedic surgeon was able to fit her with the first prosthetic leg ever designed for an elephant. As she has grown, she has needed to be fitted for new ones. But she's never forgotten the doctor who changed her life.

credit:Great Big Story

[bioengr]

Between April 23 and 27, 2018, the engineering group from Saarbrücken will take part in Hannover Messe to demonstrate the abilities of their vacuum grippers at the Saarland Research and Innovation Stand.

The system avoids the need for compressed air to generate the vacuum and is silent, energy efficient, and appropriate for use in clean rooms. Experts in the field of intelligent materials systems use artificial muscles—bundles of ultrafine shape-memory wires with the ability to tense and relax quite similar to real muscle fibers. The wires also act as sensors and can sense, for instance, when the gripper has to tighten or re-adjust its grip.

The technology is reliant on nickel-titanium alloy’s shape-memory characteristics. “The term ‘shape memory’ refers to the fact that the material is able to ‘remember’ its shape and to return to that original shape after it has been deformed. If electric current flows through a wire made from this alloy, the wire becomes warmer and its lattice structure transforms in such a way that the wire shortens in length. If the current ceases, the wire cools down and lengthens again,” stated Stefan Seelecke, while elucidating on the significant underlying material phase transitions. "The wires provide all the necessary information. The electrical resistance data correlates precisely with the extent of deformation of the wires. By interpreting the measurement data, the controller unit, therefore, knows the exact position of the wires at any one time.

Source: azorobotics.

[bioengr]

The making of an aortic segment made from stem cells

Follow us on 👉🏼 @bioengr

[bioengr]

Wearing masks in public is a fact of life, but all masks are not created equal. If you want the best, you want a Leaf Mask. Unlike other options, the Leaf Mask is clear, FDA-registered, HEPA filtering and has UV-C sterilization. What makes that possible? U-Series N99+ HEPA or carbon filter that’s replaceable. Ultra lightweight design. 99.9997% filtration of 0.3 Micron. The UV and Pro Leaf variants also include Active UV-C pathogen sterilization. In other words, Leaf is safer, smarter, more comfortable and you can still unlock your phone with FaceID. 

credit: mashable, coolmaterial

[bioengr]

When there’s a vexing problem to be solved, people sometimes offer metaphorical advice such as “stretching the mind” or engaging in “flexible” thinking, but in confronting a problem facing many biomedical research labs, a team of MIT researchers has engineered a solution that is much more literal. To make imaging cells and molecules in brain and other large tissues easier while also making samples tough enough for years of handling in the lab, they have come up with a chemical process that makes tissue stretchable, compressible, and pretty much indestructible.

“ELAST” technology, described in a new paper in Nature Methods, provides scientists a very fast way to fluorescently label cells, proteins, genetic material, and other molecules within brains, kidneys, lungs, hearts, and other organs. That’s because when such tissues can be stretched out or squished down thin, labeling probes can infuse them far more rapidly. Several demonstrations in the paper show that even after repeated expansions or compressions to speed up labeling, tissues snap back to their original form unaltered except for the new labels.

credit: MIT news

[bioengr]

MY SPACE HELMET: Drip protection ventilated Helmet with integrated filter

An air-conditioned, ventilated helmet with a controlled space. A positive pressure protective Helmet. This is my space, the result of a few days of experimentation that has allowed us to pass, in only three days, from a prototype to the first production for internal use, all thanks to digital manufacturing.

This device wants to fulfil the prerogative to go close to another person without the risk of contamination. The ventilated helmet is made of light and transparent plastic material, it is easy to wear and creates a personal protected space.

Nose, mouth, eyes, ears, everything is enclosed in a pressurized casing and once worn you have a feeling of protection, without the limitation of breathing capacity caused by the masks.

The fresh and clean air comes from above, while at the ears area, small holes allow the sound to enter. The holes are protected by air-flow out which can be closed if desired.

The fan is powered by a battery for several hours. The ventilation and feeding system are 3D printed using Delta WASP 4070 INDUSTRIAL 4.0. Their .stl files are available for download.

Now the first 5 ventilated Helmets are ready. These are non-certified devices that WASP will internally test to evaluate their strengths and weaknesses and then give them to the front-line operator for testing.

source: 3dwasp

[bioengr]

2018-Researchers at the University of Minnesota have fully 3D printed an image sensing array on a hemisphere, which is a first-of-its-kind prototype for a “bionic eye.”

Credit: University of Minnesota, McAlpine Group

A team of researchers at the University of Minnesota have, for the first time, fully 3D printed an array of light receptors on a hemispherical surface. This discovery marks a significant step toward creating a “bionic eye” that could someday help blind people see or sighted people see better.

The research is published today in Advanced Materials, a peer-reviewed scientific journal covering materials science. The author also holds the patent for 3D-printed semiconducting devices.

“Bionic eyes are usually thought of as science fiction, but now we are closer than ever using a multimaterial 3D printer,” said Michael McAlpine, a co-author of the study and University of Minnesota Benjamin Mayhugh Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering.

[bioengr]

Happy New Year 🎆🎉🎉🎈

[bioengr]

This a virtual robotic surgery simulator. Designed and created to help in training wanna be surgeons. This is module is a low cost setup.

[bioengr]

Smart sensors embeded in a workhorse coronary wire to better treat cardiac patients, and all in a Philips device only 14/1000 inch in diameter!

[bioengr]

Corrective osteotomies are commonly used in pediatric orthopedics for a wide range of indications. Corrections can be performed acutely or gradually. Fixation can be internal, external, or a combination of both, with each method having advantages and disadvantages. But when dealing with children, success does not lie only in the skill of the engineers or in the application of the surgical technique. The emotional support given by @claireshannonmd and her great affection are examples of this.

"[The little girl] has a monolateral rail device on her femur called a Driverail made by Devise Ortho. This is connected to a ring fixator on her lower leg with a knee hinge, as we did a corrective osteotomy of the tibia at the same time. She lengthened 5cm in the femur with gradual distraction.

The bottom portion of the constuct is a system called Orthex.All developed by a lot of smart engineers", she said.

Driverail is an assembly of non-sterile devices designed to stabilize fractured bones to promote treatment and healing. It typically consists of an external plastic and/or metallic fixator (a framework) and other external and/or implantable components such as clamps, rods, rings, pins, bolts, and nuts, as well as some reusable instrumentation (e.g., wrenches, depth gauge, tensioner). It is used mainly to help the healing of long bones such as the femur, tibia and humerus, as well as fractures of the foot and ankle, joint fusions, and limb lengthening. This is a single-use device intended to be sterilized prior to use.

[bioengr]

Monitoring in real time what happens in and around our bodies can be invaluable in the context of health care or clinical studies, but not so easy to do. That could soon change thanks to new, miniaturized sensors developed by researchers at the Tufts University School of Engineering that, when mounted directly on a tooth and communicating wirelessly with a mobile device, can transmit information on glucose, salt and alcohol intake.

The sensors are made up of three sandwiched layers: a central “bioresponsive” layer that absorbs the nutrient or other chemicals to be detected, and outer layers consisting of two square-shaped gold rings. Together, the three layers act like a tiny antenna, collecting and transmitting waves in the radiofrequency spectrum.

As an incoming wave hits the sensor, some of it is cancelled out and the rest transmitted back, just like a patch of blue paint absorbs redder wavelengths and reflects the blue back to our eyes.

The sensor, however, can change its “color.” For example, if the central layer takes on salt, or ethanol, its electrical properties will shift, causing the sensor to absorb and transmit a different spectrum of radiofrequency waves, with varying intensity. That is how nutrients and other analytes can be detected and measured.

“In theory we can modify the bioresponsive layer in these sensors to target other chemicals – we are really limited only by our creativity,” said Fiorenzo Omenetto, Ph.D., corresponding author and the Frank C. Doble Professor of Engineering at Tufts. “We have extended common RFID [radiofrequency ID] technology to a sensor package that can dynamically read and transmit information on its environment, whether it is affixed to a tooth, to skin, or any other surface.”

[bioengr]

Soft robots and biomedical implants that reconfigure themselves upon demand are closer to reality with a new way to print shapeshifting materials. Rafael Verduzco and graduate student Morgan Barnes of Rice’s Brown School of Engineering developed a method to print objects that can be manipulated to take on alternate forms when exposed to changes in temperature, electric current or stress.

credit: rice university